principle, or akin to desire? There is a story of a certain Leontius which
throws some light on this question. He was coming up from the Piraeus
outside the north wall, and he passed a spot where there were dead bodies
lying by the executioner. He felt a longing desire to see them and also an
abhorrence of them; at first he turned away and shut his eyes, then, *440*
suddenly tearing them open, he said,--'Take your fill, ye wretches, of the
fair sight.' Now is there not here a third principle which is often found
to come to the assistance of reason against desire, but never of desire
against reason? This is passion or spirit, of the separate existence of
which we may further convince ourselves by putting the following
case:--When a man suffers justly, if he be of a generous nature he is not
indignant at the hardships which he undergoes: but when he suffers
unjustly, his indignation is his great support; hunger and thirst cannot
tame him; the spirit within him must do or die, until the voice of the
shepherd, that is, of reason, bidding his dog bark no more, is heard
within. This shows that passion is the ally of reason. *441* Is passion
then the same with reason? No, for the former exists in children and
brutes; and Homer affords a proof of the distinction between them when he
says, 'He smote his breast, and thus rebuked his soul.'
{lxvi} And now, at last, we have reached firm ground, and are able to
infer that the virtues of the State and of the individual are the same.
For wisdom and courage and justice in the State are severally the wisdom
and courage and justice in the individuals who form the State. Each of the
three classes will do the work of its own class in the State, and each
part in the individual soul; reason, the superior, and passion, the
inferior, *442* will be harmonized by the influence of music and
gymnastic. The counsellor and the warrior, the head and the arm, will act
together in the town of Mansoul, and keep the desires in proper
subjection. The courage of the warrior is that quality which preserves a
right opinion about dangers in spite of pleasures and pains. The wisdom of
the counsellor is that small part of the soul which has authority and
reason. The virtue of temperance is the friendship of the ruling and the
subject principles, both in the State and in the individual. Of justice we
have already spoken; and the notion already given of it may be confirmed
by common instances. Will the just state or the just individual *443*
steal, lie, commit adultery, or be guilty of impiety to gods and men?
'No.' And is not the reason of this that the several principles, whether
in the state or in the individual, do their own business? And justice is
the quality which makes just men and just states. Moreover, our old
division of labour, which required that there should be one man for one
use, was a dream or anticipation of what was to follow; and that dream has
now been realized in justice, which begins by binding together the three